Friday, May 29, 2015

Remember the robber I scared off like a big man? Yeah, he
came back and stole our TV. But let’s not dwell on that, shall we? We boarded
up our windows and my Rottweiler mounted elephant gun arrives in the mail this
weekend.

I want to tell the tail of another great mystery: The case
of the soapy tooth brush.

Two weeks ago at bedtime when Diana brushed her teeth, her
mouth filled with rosemary hand soap. This did not please Diana. But she
chalked it up to nothing.

But one week ago, it happened again (cue dramatic music).

As you all know, the boys’ cousins come over almost every
Saturday. They play, they cry, they beg repeatedly to play Xbox. And there are
great swaths of time where all the kids are out of sight. Either playing on the
swing set or playing that “Who Wants To Die” creepy tag game they invented.

It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out it was one of
these four kids. We immediately sat down Elijah and Luca and grilled them like Riggs
and Murtaugh. We were bad cop/bad cop. If we don’t find out who is squirting soap
on Diana’s toothbrush we are canceling cousin time effective immediately.

They both rolled over on cousin Rory. Yes. It had to be
Rory. Because she goes to the bathroom. A lot. And when she’s in there she
takes a lot of time. So mathematically it has to be her. Case closed. Eli was
particularly emphatic that Rory was the only logical conclusion.

I wasn’t so sure. Rory may have a mischievous streak, but
soap on a toothbrush didn’t feel like her M.O. And why target Diana? What did
she ever do to Rory except give her popsicles? Did Rory hate popsicles?

I eventually sat Rory down, with Luca acting as her lawyer.

“Now Rory. Let me first say I’m not mad and you are not in
trouble. I am just trying to figure out who put soap on Diana’s toothbrush. Do
you think you may have accidentally taken Diana’s toothbrush and accidentally
put it under our soap dispenser and accidentally squirted soap all over it?”

Luca said, “Yes. Because you spend a lot of time in the
bathroom, Rory.”

I tried to explain to Luca that he was supposed to be Rory’s
lawyer, not for the Prosecution.

Rory interrupted us with the most forceful speech I’ve heard
from her mouth. “When I go to the bathroom. I. Go. To. The. Bathroom. That’s
it.”

Okay. Sheesh.I told
Diana I struck out and we may actually have to make good on our threat to
cancel cousin time.

She said, “Oh no. Eli just admitted he’s been filling our
toothpaste tube with soap as a science experiment.”

The little rat was going to let Rory take the fall until his
conscious got the better of him.

Case closed. And now a special message to the dude who stole
our TV: I sincerely hope the channels get stuck on an infinite marathon of “Downton
Abby.” Oh, and that it falls on you and crushes you to death.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

At 1am, I heard the side door bang shut loudly. A little odd
given the hour, but Diana roams around a lot at night with wine store related anxiety,
so I chalked it up to nothing and closed my eyes.

I heard another thud from the other side of the house. The
side of our house that’s currently undergoing a massive renovation. What in the
world would Diana be doing over there?

I leaned over and saw Diana was sound asleep. Uh-oh.

I crept over the two, count ‘em, two sleeping guard dogs in our
hallway: Grover and Chris and Lexa’s massive German Shepherd Greta. I’ll get
back to them being fired later.

I tiptoed through our dining room and peeled back the
plastic sheeting separating us from the construction. Then I saw it: A box
being hauled out of our front living room by some dude. It appears the construction workers had left the window unlocked and someone was using it as their own personal
Best Buy.

As a Dad, this is a situation you play out in your head
millions of times. Billions. The number one dad job is to protect your family.
That’s it. My greatest fear was someone would come into my home and I would be
too scared to protect Diana, Elijah and Luca. I’d choose flight over fight
and that would be it. The greatest failure of Dad-ness in the history of the
world.

Maybe it was this fear of failure that propelled me across
our living room. Or maybe it was the fact that we had just finished watching
the revenge movie “John Wick” and I was still amped up from watching Keanu
Reeves kill so many people we lost count in the first fifteen minutes.

Either way I ran across the room, stuck my head out the
window and shouted, “What the f*ck are you doing?” Loud.

Standing there, with arms full of my stuff, was a bald man
who was my age. He was dressed like he was heading off to his own construction
site. I don’t think he expected us to be home, because I scared the crap
out of him.

He blurted, “I’m here doing work!”

The total illogic of his statement was like a slap to the
face. I shook my head and shouted again, “Get the f*ck out of here or I’ll get
my gun and f*cking kill you!”

I was glad he didn’t ask to see my gun because I don’t have
one. I was also glad he didn’t ask why I didn’t simply bring my fictional gun
and murder him John Wick style since it seemed to currently be an option on the
table.

The scared bald man burst through our gate and into the
night.

I did it! I did it! I scared off a bad man who meant to do
my family harm. I brushed off my hands and put my thumbs through my imaginary
suspender straps. I also twirled my imaginary gun and put it back into my
imaginary holster.

I did a quick search of the premises, this time armed with a
lovely Japanese butcher knife Diana had gotten me for Christmas. I also closed up the window and locked it. Case closed.

I went back to bed, so pleased with myself and stared up at
the ceiling. I am a modern day hero, I thought. Diana sat up in bed and asked
if I had heard a noise.

“I think that was the dogs,” I said. “Oh. And by the way,
there was a man in our house but I scared him off.”

“WHAT?” Diana responded in the only reasonable way possible.

“Don’t worry. I scared him off.”

“Did you call the police???” She understandably shouted.

Oh right. The police. They would want to know. Maybe it was
adrenaline clouding my thoughts. Or maybe I was a complete moron. But it simply
didn’t occur to me to call them.

I called Evanston police and said, “Hi. There was a man who
was robbing our house just now.”

They asked if he was still there and I said no, he had been
gone for around 15 minutes.

“Sir, why did you wait fifteen minutes to call us?”

I quickly made up a lie that I was busy securing our house
and checking to make sure there wasn’t anyone else still there and not
spending that time in bed.

Within minutes our house was surrounded by Evanston’s
finest. At which point Grover and Greta began barking at the intruders. They
are fired.

They didn’t end up catching the guy because, well, he had a lot of
time to run away. But the police assured us he wouldn’t be back. Especially
with the fictional gun we had in the house.

Long story short, the only stuff the bad guy got was a box
of DVDs we set aside for the poor. I hope he likes that scratched copy of The
Borne Supremacy.

I also just spent a couple hundred dollars on a home
security system advertised (naturally) on NPR.

Friday, May 22, 2015

Quite frankly, this team hasn’t been living up to the proud
and storied history of the Evanston T-Ball Dads. It’s a disgrace and you better
shape up.

Uniforms. How many times to I have to say this? We wear
cargo shorts. Big, baggy cargo shorts. I want to be able to fit a Labrador
puppy in your pockets. And if I can see your knees you’re running laps.The only one who gets a pass is McDonagh. As team
clown he can wear crazy plaid shorts. Great job, McDonagh.

You guys know the league is strict about t-shirts. Ratty,
old, faded. With obscure or ironic cultural references only. Dolan, what on
God’s green earth made you think you could wear a purple polo? Do you want a
fine, Dolan? Swap that out for Bill Murray or Dillon Panthers now. Do it. Take
a note from McDonagh. “World’s Greatest Dad.” Classic.

I’m also very disappointed in this team’s fitness. Everyone
is to be 10 pounds overweight. All in the gut. I want to see guts, people. If I
don’t start seeing some more guts you’re all running laps. And I can see in
your eyes that some of you aren’t hung over. League minimum is 4 hung over
dads. What are you doing on Friday nights?

I’ve also been getting some reports about your behavior in the
stands. We aren’t here to pay attention to the game, people. We’re here to
humble brag about our success. I wanna hear stories about BMW mechanics and
Costa Rican hotels. McDonagh, you just keep doing a play by play like it’s the
World Series. That bit’s hysterical.

Oh, and one more thing: Snacks. This is Evanston. Let’s try
to keep them inedible and bought from Whole Foods. Something stamped with
“organic” or “fair trade.”Last week
someone brought Doritos and Coke we almost had a mom riot on our hands.

That’s it. Let’s get out there and cheer on your sons and
the three other kids whose names you can remember.

Hands in and give me a “Reliving our insecurities through
our sons” on three.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Yesterday, Luca had another baseball practice. And is
appears his severe anxiety is over. Diana reported that Luca needed no hand
holding in the field and actually nabbed a few balls.

When I asked him about it last night he said, “I’m
pretty much the best baseball player ever.” This kind of bums me out
because I was really looking forward to hanging with him in left field again. I
had my chewing tobacco picked out and everything.

At Elijah’s first baseball game, one
of his coaches gleefully called him “Slugger.”“Hey Slugger! Here comes
Slugger! Look out, it’s Slugger!”

It was only after watching Eli at the plate that I realized
his coach was using the name ironically.

Eli is more of a contact hitter. There’s
not a lot of upper body strength, so he just kind of positions the bat in a way
that, when it connects with the ball, it dribbles out a few feet. But you know
what? It guarantees he gets to first base because what 8 year old catcher knows
what to do in a bunt situation?

But I decided it was time to do a little training with
Slugger. After a little research, I purchased a Skillz Batting Trainer. Adding
a “Z” to your product instead of an “S”
almost disqualified it, but the thing was pretty highly rated on Amazon.com.

The Skillz thing is basically a long stick with a bright
green ball at the end. The Dad (me) holds the thing out in front of the batter
(Eli) and they whack at it. We gave it a shot last weekend and we had a blast.

Eli loved it because when you hit the green ball at the end
it makes this wonderful “Ping”
sound off his aluminum bat that makes the dogs in the neighborhood think the apocalypse
has arrived.

It also required almost no baseball knowledge. All I had to
do was stand there and shout “Home Run!”
every time he pinged the ball. And bask in the sound of dogs scratching at
their front doors to escape.

Monday, May 11, 2015

Hamann tradition is the boys get to select one item from
Target for Diana for Mother's Day. Past items have included Terminator sunglasses and muumuus.

This year, in a move that would make Oedipus proud, Elijah
and Luca picked out a matching panties set emblazoned with characters from
Disney’s “Frozen.”
When Diana opened it up (among some more legit presents), they demanded she do
a fashion show with a vehemence that would also make Oedipus proud. Diana demurred.
I suggested she do a private fashion show for me later, but then immediately
felt gross about sexualizing Disney characters. Why does this product exist?

Normally, Mother’s Day involves me
distracting the boys while Diana spends the day in the yard, gardening.
However, we are embarking on a massive home renovation that will treat our
original house as a mere suggestion. So we needed to clear out everything east
of our dining room in anticipation of demolition.

So instead of puttering in the soil, Diana had to paw
through and categorize a billion toys. When you lay out 8 years’
worth of children’s toys, it’s
pretty staggering. We tried to enlist Eli and Luca to help, but they’d
just clutch broken infant toys as if the sad, old dried out Cookie Monster Play
Dough set was the key to their happiness.

We ended up sending the boys off to play video games and
watch TV upstairs for twelve hours straight. Thus, making it the greatest
Mother’s Day of their lives.

At one point, I thought we should go outside to practice
baseball and I found them in a shirtless, pale pile on the couch. They hissed
at me with red eyes like rabid raccoons.

Grover was no better. Moving boxes gives him anxiety because
of some ancient trauma that befell some wolf ancestor of his. He spent the
whole day sighing and looking at me pleadingly.

At the end of the day, Diana and I lamented our own lack of
mothers and plotted evil things to do to the Facebook posters on Mother’s
Day. But instead the family turned to our other Hamann tradition of saying what
we love about guests of honor.

Luca, commented on Diana’s excellence in both
kisses and smooches. To him there’s a difference. Elijah
waxed poetic about Diana’s ability to spend money on him.

I simply asked everyone to look around. There was nothing
that Diana love didn’t make better. From the walls of
our house to our anxious dog who seemed at ease by her side to our beautiful,
kind, funny sons. It’s Diana who makes everything in my life wonderful.